Michael Arace commentary: OWU catcher played role in baseball's integration

Monday

Jun 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMJul 2, 2008 at 9:57 AM

DELAWARE, Ohio -- This fair little city is celebrating its bicentennial this year and, as it turns out, there is a concentration on Henry Street. The first city structure (a tavern) was constructed on this strip -- near an Indian burial ground, as it turned out. In the 1860s, the Union built a large camp here for mustering Civil War troops. In 1890, the first Ohio State football game was played, against Ohio Wesleyan University, in a meadow down the street.

DELAWARE, Ohio -- This fair little city is celebrating its bicentennial this year and, as it turns out, there is a concentration on Henry Street. The first city structure (a tavern) was constructed on this strip -- near an Indian burial ground, as it turned out. In the 1860s, the Union built a large camp here for mustering Civil War troops. In 1890, the first Ohio State football game was played, against Ohio Wesleyan University, in a meadow down the street.

But the most historically important activity in this rich territory on the banks of the Olentangy River involved a baseball coach named Branch Rickey and a catcher named Charles Thomas. You've heard of Rickey. You should hear about Thomas.

And that is why Jay Sokol, general manager of the Delaware Cows, staged a vintage baseball game against the Ohio Village Muffins yesterday at Littwick Field. The game was played in honor of Thomas, whose impact on the integration of baseball probably will never be fully appreciated.

Thomas was the man who made Rickey start thinking of the color line -- in 1903, a full 44 years before he selected Jackie Robinson to break the barrier in the major leagues with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

"The more I researched," Sokol said, "the more I saw that so little was known about Thomas."

Thomas was an anomaly in the first decade of the 20th century. He was a black athlete at an overwhelmingly white college. His coach at OWU, in baseball and football, was Rickey.

Before Rickey even thought of embarking on baseball's great experiment, he told stories of Thomas. One story was about how the West Virginia football team refused to play OWU with Thomas in the backfield. Another story went like this:

On a trip to South Bend, Ind., where OWU had a series scheduled against Notre Dame, Thomas was denied a room at the Oliver Hotel. Rickey ultimately persuaded the front-desk clerk to allow his black catcher to stay in his room as an unregistered guest. When Rickey got to the room, he found Thomas in a chair, wringing his hands.

"Damned skin," Thomas said. "If only I could rub it off."

That incident haunted Rickey for decades. In 1945, when Rickey was GM of the Dodgers, he told broadcaster Red Barber of his secret plan to integrate the team. Rickey recounted the story to Barber.

"All these years I have heard that boy crying," Rickey said. "And now I'm going to do something about it."

Baseball historians are aware of the tale. Sokol, a historian in his own right, veered into new territory in his examination of the forgotten character, Thomas. Sokol became entranced with the man.

Thomas, raised in Zanesville, encountered numerous, ugly incidents of racism as the only black player on OWU's football and baseball teams. He excelled in both sports, as well as in track, while comporting himself with quiet dignity. His best revenge was excellence.

Thomas graduated from OWU -- and from dentistry school at Ohio State. He played for a number of prominent Negro baseball teams of the day, including the Columbus Black Tourists. In fact, Thomas hit .619 as a spot player for the 1905 Philadelphia Giants, considered one of the best Negro teams. Until Sokol started poking around, the connection between the OWU star who inspired Rickey and the part-time player for the Giants had not been made.

In a Moonlight Graham-like maneuver, Thomas left baseball behind to practice dentistry. He wound up in New Mexico, where he was one of three black dentists in the state at the time. He corresponded with Rickey until Rickey's death in 1965. Alas, those letters have been lost.

Sokol isn't positive about it, but his gut tells him that when Rickey went looking for the right man to integrate baseball, he had a portrait of Thomas in his mind when he picked Robinson. That's a fair bet, and another wrinkle in an amazing, if overlooked, legacy.

Thomas died in 1971, at the age of 90. Yesterday, the Cows, of the Great Lakes Collegiate League, dedicated a vintage game to Thomas. Delaware mayor Windell Wheeler proclaimed it Charles Thomas Day. A shower passed through, but Henry Street, co-named Branch Rickey Way, was a good place to be.

Hopefully, someone special was watching from some ethereal perch and, if he was, he was smiling gloriously. Thomas was a part of baseball history, and he knew teeth.